john mccain and kelly ayotte and lindsey graham saying why did she say the things she said? the only advance we had is the intelligence community said she said exactly what we told her to say. we knew it was an attack, and we told her not to say because we didn't want al qaeda to know we knew it at that point. the real question is why is mccain making this attack and wasting whatever political capital and reputation he has left? >> reporter: well, some people are wondering does mccain want to simply stay in the spotlight? mccain is known for foreign policy. he's known for going on sunday shows. the benghazi issue gets him back in the spotlight. everyone is talking about john mccain again. so some people wonder if there's a little bit of political opportunism there. >> i want to go back to something krystal said a minute ago. closing ranks behind susan rice because much political battle lines in this. you made the point earlier if you just looked at this without regard to benghazi and said john mccain realistically speaking, who potentially could appoint secretary of state th